“So what are we going do about it? I don’t see the point of waiting for no fucking jury.”

Snake looked back out over the dark water.

“We’ve got to do something,” Alois said.

Snake smoked his cigarette in self-absorbed silence. After a while, he said, “Tom Cage is beyond being threatened, or blackmailed. I’ve seen it before. He’s shaking hands with Death. That’s what a guy in my unit used to say.”

Helpless fury was building in Alois’s chest. “So what are you saying, Pop? Huh? Do nothing?”

Snake tossed the glowing butt into the fast-flowing current and said, “Don’t worry about it. I’m gonna take care of the doc before he does something against all reason.”

Alois’s arteries expanded with excitement. “What are we going to do?”

“I’ve already done it,” Snake said, turning back to the sandy road that led to the house. “Wilma ought to have that venison about ready now. Let’s get back inside. I gotta figure a way to trace that woman from Athens Point. I spent twenty minutes fuckin’ her in the swamp, and I doubt she’s forgot a second of it. She can put my white ass in Angola.”

“To hell with that,” Alois said, desperate to know what his father had planned. “What have you got going?”

As Snake passed Alois, he let his eyes fall on those of his son. “That trial’s over,” he said. “Tom Cage will never see the light of morning.”

Not long after midnight, Deputy Larry McQuarters opened the cellblock door and strode between the cells to check the prisoners. Several were still awake, and a couple begged him to bring treats or let them borrow his cell phone. Larry ignored them. He’d come to check on Dr. Cage, who was a special friend of one of Larry’s favorite people. On Quentin’s advice, Larry had varied the intervals between his checks, but even so, he hadn’t discovered anything that troubled him about Dr. Cage’s treatment. Everybody knew Sheriff Byrd didn’t care for Tom Cage, but more than a few deputies didn’t care much for Sheriff Byrd, either—

Larry stood before Dr. Cage’s cell with his mouth open.

The cell door was closed, but the cell was empty.

“Where Dr. Cage at?” Larry called. “Hey! Where Dr. Cage gone?”

“He said he needed some medicine,” answered a drug dealer from a bunk in the adjacent cell. “His chest was hurtin’ him.”

Alarms rang in Larry’s big head. “Who come got him?”

“Dunwoody.”

Dunwoody? Sheriff Byrd’s pet rat . . .

Larry turned and ran for the door, which required considerable effort since he weighed nearly three hundred pounds. His first stop, once he got through the cellblock door, was the monitor station, where one of several computer screens would display whatever was going on in the infirmary, one floor below.